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By Clare KaneREUTERS • Thursday May 2, 2013 10:02 AM

MADRID — Workers hit by lower living standards and record-high unemployment staged May Day
protests across Europe yesterday, hoping to persuade their governments of the case for easing
austerity measures and boosting growth.

In the debt-laden eurozone countries of Spain, Greece, Italy and France, tens of thousands of
people took to the streets to demand jobs and an end to years of belt-tightening.

In Spain, where the economy has shrunk for seven consecutive quarters and unemployment stands at
a record 27 percent, thousands of people snaked up Madrid’s Gran Via central shopping street
carrying placards reading “austerity ruins and kills.”

“The future of Spain looks terrible; we’re going backwards with this government,” said former
civil servant Alicia Candelas, 54, who has been without a job for two years.

Unions said 50,000 people marched in Madrid and more than 1 million took part in peaceful
rallies across Spain. There was no independent estimate, and police did not give a figure.

Trains and ferries were canceled in Greece, and bank and hospital staff members walked off the
job after unions there called a 24-hour strike, the latest in a string of protests in a country in
its sixth year of recession.

About 1,000 police officers were deployed in Athens, but the demonstration was peaceful, with
about 5,000 striking workers, pensioners and students marching to parliament holding banners
reading “We won’t become slaves, take to the streets!”

Four eurozone countries — Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus — have received sovereign
bailouts. With little or no sign of growth in the currency bloc, the European Central Bank is
expected to cut interest rates to a record low of 0.5 percent at its meeting today.

But analysts say that alone will do little to lift the zone out of recession, and several
governments are now discussing policies to try to boost growth.

Italy’s new prime minister, Enrico Letta, told Germany on Tuesday that his government would meet
its budget commitments but expects Europe to drop its austerity mantra and do more to lift
growth.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seen by many in southern Europe as the champion of the
belt-tightening approach, struck a conciliatory tone, saying “budget consolidation and growth need
not be contradictory.”

Letta met French President Francois Hollande yesterday, expecting a more-favorable hearing for
his focus on growth.

German unions said about 425,000 people took part in more than 400 events across the
country.

Michael Sommer, head of the DGB federation of German labor unions, said the German government
should have more solidarity with the rest of the eurozone.

“We cannot allow this continent to be
kaputtgespart — forced to save so much that it breaks apart,” he said.

Tens of thousands marched in Italy’s major cities to demand action to tackle unemployment — 11.5
percent overall, 40 percent among the young.

Pope Francis made a May Day appeal for governments to tackle unemployment, as “work is
fundamental to the dignity of a person.”

Thousands of people marched in Lisbon calling for an end to austerity dictated by Portugal’s
EU/IMF bailout, a day after the government said there would be more cuts.